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Early detection of heavy rainfall events associated with the monsoon in Kerala, India using GPS derived ZTD and PWV estimates: A case study

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Abstract

The Precipitable Water Vapour (PWV) content associated with heavy precipitations can be estimated using the temporal variation of the Global Positioning System (GPS) derived Zenith Total Delay (ZTD). The ZTD and PWV were calculated using continuously observed GPS data for nine months (1 April to 31 December of 2018) that include the August 2018 catastrophic rainfall events in the state of Kerala, which is the gateway to the Indian summer monsoon located at southwest coast of India. The results show a precursory increment of ZTD followed by a decreasing phase before 5:45 h to 6:45 h of each heavy precipitation event. Further, the analysis of Radiosonde-derived ZTD for the past 45 years from 1973–2018 and GPS-derived ZTD from 2012–2018 reveal that during the onset of southwest monsoon over Kerala, the majority of the ZTD values converges within the range 2.55–2.70 m. The study exhibits that the GPS-derived ZTD could be effectively used for the real-time/short-term early detection of heavy precipitation events and to aid info on the onset time of southwest Indian summer monsoon.

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Acknowledgements

This work was carried out as part of the ISRO-SAC, NavIC-GAGAN, NGP-7 and DST-SERB, EEQ/2018/001480 sponsored projects in the Department of Marine Geology and Geophysics, Cochin University of Science and Technology, India. We thank the support received from the Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi and Indian Institute of Geomagnetism, Mumbai, for the initial approvals to carry out the work. The authors gratefully acknowledge the Airport Authority of India (AAI), Ahmedabad, and India Meteorological Department (IMD), Thiruvananthapuram, for providing GPS and Rainfall data, respectively. The figures were prepared by Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) (https://www.generic-mapping-tools.org/). The authors also thank both anonymous reviewers and Corresponding Editor for their constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marine Geology and Geophysics, School of Marine Sciences, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi, India

    M S Rose, P S Sunil & A S Sunil

  2. Tropical Marine Science Institute, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Johnson Zacharia

  3. Geosciences Division, Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad, India

    K M Sreejith

  4. Airport Authority of India, Ahmedabad, India

    S Sunda

  5. Meteorological Centre, India Meteorological Department, Thiruvananthapuram, India

    V K Mini

  6. Indian Institute of Geomagnetism, Mumbai, India

    K Vijay Kumar

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  1. M S Rose
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Contributions

MSR: Data analysis, interpretation, figure preparation and initial manuscript drafting. PSS: Conceptualization, supervision, interpretation and manuscript co-drafting. JZ: Discussion, interpretation and manuscript co-drafting. KMS: Discussion and critical review of the manuscript. SS: Discussion and provided GPS data. VKM: Discussion and provided rainfall data. ASS: Discussion and help in figure preparation. KVK: Discussion and manuscript review.

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Correspondence to P S Sunil.

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Communicated by C Gnanaseelan

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Rose, M.S., Sunil, P.S., Zacharia, J. et al. Early detection of heavy rainfall events associated with the monsoon in Kerala, India using GPS derived ZTD and PWV estimates: A case study. J Earth Syst Sci 132, 23 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-022-02034-5

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